Raising money at Girlguiding

Raising money at Girlguiding

Contents Introduction 3 Fundraising at Girlguiding 3 Who are your funders? 3 What can you get funding for? 4 Planning your fundraising 5 Time management 6 What next? 6 Top tips 7 2

Introduction Many units and areas find that it is necessary to raise funds to carry out a varied and exciting programme of activities for their girls and young women. There are a number of ways to raise the money needed, ranging from the local community to multinational companies. This document aims to help you in taking the right approach to raising money successfully. It s also meant to take the stress out of planning your fundraising! Before you start looking at ways to fundraise, remember that internal bursaries are available from Girlguiding. Download the Internal grants at Girlguiding document to find out what grants might be available to you. Perhaps the first and most important point to remember is that it s fine to fundraise for guiding other youth organisations do it all the time. We can think as big as we like as long as we are able to deliver on our promises to funders. Because we are a membership-based organisation, we sometimes forget that we also are a registered charity with charitable objectives. We do some fabulous work with girls and young women, giving them opportunities that they might otherwise never have access to, helping them develop physically, mentally and spiritually. The guiding culture has always been to raise money for our work through local fundraising initiatives such as packing bags at a supermarket. This is a great place to start, but there is a wealth of other funding options that can provide more money (in less time!). Using a combination of these fundraising techniques, we can provide girls and young women with fantastic guiding experiences. Moreover, in many cases older girls can be involved in the fundraising process, thus learning many valuable skills, including budgeting and learning to write and speak persuasively. It is important that adult volunteers develop the necessary skills and knowledge to access a variety of funds, so that as many girls as possible can make the most of what guiding can offer. Fundraising is about building a partnership between two groups that share the same objectives. The partnership works by you delivering the work and the funder(s) giving the financial support. Raising money can be a challenge. Sometimes it is frustrating, sometimes it is really enjoyable. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don t. It is often rewarding, it is always hard work. Like any game, fundraising has its own rules. This document will give you the basic rules and strategies for success. Who are your funders? There are a number of sources of funding available to local guiding, including a few that many of you will have encountered already. They all require slightly different approaches, but they are achievable ways of accessing funding and could add benefit to the guiding experience. Your local community This includes both local people and companies which might support your general work or a specific project. Guiding has traditionally raised money for local projects (and other good causes) through community fundraising initiatives such as jumble sales and cake and craft stalls in the community. There is more information on this type of fundraising in the Guide to fundraising within the community. 3

Statutory bodies Local, regional and central government (and, for certain projects, the European Union) often have funding streams available to local voluntary organisations. In fact, more than a third of income to charities comes from statutory sources. It is worth building relationships with local representatives as they will come to you when suitable money is available. Such bodies are often also a great source of one-off funding for bigger jobs such as building or refurbishment projects. The Guide to fundraising from trusts, National Lottery and statutory sources has more information. Trusts and foundations According to the Association of Charitable Foundations (ACF), there are around 8,800 trusts in the UK which give out a total of over 2.1 billion in grants to charities and other organisations every year. Trusts and foundations range from large organisations, which employ administrative staff and make large grants of several hundred thousand pounds, to very small, localised trusts, which award grants of less than 50 to specific villages. A number of online tools such as the Funderfinder, GrantNET and Trustfunding are available to research potential trusts. The Directory of Social Change (DSC) also produces a number of useful directories. It is worth speaking to your local library or a local voluntarysector infrastructure organisation as it will be able to give you free access to some of these resources. Contact details can be found through the Councils for Voluntary Services (CVS) in England (www.navca.org.uk), Wales (www.wcva.org.uk), Scotland (www.scvo.org.uk) and Northern Ireland (www.nicva.org). The Guide to fundraising from trusts, National Lottery and statutory sources has more information. The National Lottery There are 14 organisations offering grant schemes to the public as part of the National Lottery. Since 1994, 25 billion has been raised for good causes. Of the 350,000 grants made, over half have been for less than 5,000, indicating that smaller organisations like Girlguiding units are of interest to lottery funders. Perhaps the most relevant lottery funder to Girlguiding is Awards for All. Grants from this funder are for amounts up to 10,000 ( 5,000 in Wales) and it funds a huge variety of projects. See Awards for All guidance for more information. Gift Aid For every 1 a tax-payer gives to your unit, you can claim an extra 25p from the government at no extra cost to the donor. This applies as long as the donor pays the same in tax as you are claiming back from the government and you keep simple information about him or her (such as name, address and acknowledgement that he or she pays tax). Many units use Gift Aid to boost their subs. Please look at the Gift Aid section of the Girlguiding website for helpful advice. 4 What can you get funding for? What opportunities would you like to be able to offer girls and young women? It s important that you really think about what you want to get from a project, who it will help and how, and what you will achieve. With so many different funders in the UK, you should be able to find someone interested in your project, whether that s the provision of art equipment or zoo

trips! Guiding units have received funding for a huge range of activities new equipment, refurbishment of meeting places, trips (including international visits) and activity days. It is important to remember that you are not asking just for funding for the actual physical item but for help to achieve a bigger goal for example, to give girls increased confidence and skills, or to help protect the environment for the local community. Planning your fundraising All professional fundraisers will tell you that the secret to really successful fundraising is scrupulous planning. When you have a specific project to fundraise for, think creatively about how you could classify it. It is tempting to lump all guiding projects under the heading of youth work, but that could limit the types of funders you approach. So, if you are raising money to buy art materials, for example, you could call it an arts project. That could make it easier to match your project to the funding priorities of your potential donors. Think about the donors and what they want to achieve with their money, and consider how your project can help them to meet their goals. What resources do you need to make an idea become a reality? Make a list of everything you will need, from the big to the small. For example, for a camping trip the list could include anything from a trailer to transport the equipment to the cost of the teabags you ll need when you ve got all the tents up! Determine this cost and you will have an idea of how much money you need to raise. Always remember to include VAT in your costings. Another good reason to break costs down is that many funders cannot pay for a project in its entirety. Rather than just make a contribution, they often prefer to fund a particular part of the project. It can be a good idea to produce a shopping list so that you can give your funders an idea of the difference their money could make. This works from the smallest amount ( 5 could pay for a set of paints) to larger donations ( 500 could pay for the girls travel to an art gallery) and to very large ones ( 5,000 could enable a group of girls to learn new art techniques from a qualified teacher, experiment with their own creativity and put on a display of their works in a community setting). If you use this approach, remember to say that the amounts could pay for these items, otherwise you need to ensure that their donation definitely is put towards this cost. Think of a range of ways of getting funding for your project. This is particularly relevant for a larger target, for which the income could come from a range of donors. Many donors like to see that you are also raising money yourself towards the cost of a project. See Guide to fundraising within your community for some ideas on how to raise money yourselves. Where possible, build your overhead costs into each of these activities. This is called full cost recovery. Many funders have realised that charitable organisations can continue to operate only if their overhead costs (such as rent and heating) are covered as well as their direct project costs (the cost of items specifically needed to deliver a project). It is worth speaking to donors about whether they will contribute towards these costs. 5

Time management Remember to build in enough time to raise money for a project, as fundraising is often a slow process. It takes time to organise a community event, and some funding committee meetings may happen only once or twice a year. Good time management also takes away much of the stress around raising money for a project. If you break the amounts needed into a monthly or weekly budget, it seems much less daunting and helps you to keep track of how you are doing. This kind of breakdown will also help you plan your fundraising initiatives so that you shouldn t experience a month when you have an unrealistically high target or too many fundraising activities. What next? Once you have a target set and a good idea of the timing of upcoming fundraising events or approaches, you have to get started with the actual fundraising! Here are some good questions to ask yourself. What contacts do you have? Some larger companies such as banks will give money to employees involved in charity work, or they might match the funds that an employee raises for a voluntary organisation. Find out if any of the parents, Unit Leaders, Assistant Leaders or other local volunteers are able to access money in this way. Does anyone have a contact who is a trustee or know a local businessperson who might give you money? Perhaps a parent or volunteer is involved in the Freemasons or business network groups such as the Rotary Club, Lions and Inner Wheel. These groups will often give to the local community. Who can help? You are clearly not going to have time to do everything to fundraise, so it s important to look at the people around you and identify their talents and time constraints. Think about your friends, family, neighbours, work colleagues, local businesspeople and schools. All these people can be involved in fundraising initiatives. Many Leaders are put off applying for money from trusts or the National Lottery as they feel the application form will be too hard or take too long. However, most units have access to a number of volunteers with different skills. You may also have people who would like to volunteer and believe in the value of guiding, but who can t commit to specific hours each week ask these people, where appropriate, to work on parts of your application or to help with the planning of projects. Share the workload. It is worth using the 12 Hour Challenge initiative in order to find volunteers with appropriate skills. What are the risks? Think about the risks some fundraising initiatives pose. If you are putting on an event, what happens if not as many people show up as you expected? What is the payback compared to the effort? Do you need to have insurance in case of an unexpected problem? Look at the online Guiding Manual for Girlguiding s policies on fundraising events. 6

Working in partnership Think about joining with other organisations or charities to fundraise. One Guide unit in Cambridgeshire teamed up with Oxfam to organise a catwalk event modelling clothes provided by Oxfam. Think about other organisations in your area are undertaking similar work, as there might be funding pots that you could access with them as part of a consortium. Many funders like to know that you are aware of local services in your area to prove that you will not duplicate provision. Top tips Plan, plan, plan! Work out how much you need to raise, the timescale you are working to and what you need to do to reach your target. Think about your case for support. What is different about your project? What makes it urgent? Why should people give you money now? Be passionate and knowledgeable about your cause. This will make the whole experience more enjoyable and successful. Your passion will inspire potential donors. Know your competitors. There s no getting away from the fact that many great causes are fighting for every funding source. Why are you better than other youth organisations in your area? It could be that you re the only one offering girl-only space or perhaps there is simply no other provision for young people in your area. Don t think about getting just money, think about getting support. Some people may not be able to give you money but may be able to offer a raffle prize, an event venue, time and advice, equipment, or other gifts in kind. Remember, gifts in kind can often be used to balance money from funders demanding some kind of match funding from you. Remember your outcomes think of the bigger picture. Your project isn t just about the work you will do, it s about the change it will effect. For example, asking for money to attend a course in fundraising will not just produce someone who is able to fundraise more effectively, it will also result in young people being able to access more opportunities to develop skills because of the increased funding the person has obtained. Getting sponsorship and support is about developing relationships. Invest time and effort in cultivating and maintaining current and new relationships. This clearly works in a local sense, but it is equally important when working with trusts, foundations and statutory funders. When possible, invite funders to visit and impress them with modern guiding and the enthusiasm of the girls and volunteers involved. It s much harder for them to say no to funding a project when they ve met the beneficiaries! Make sponsoring you easy. Set up online sponsorship pages and distribute the link as widely as possible. The website www.justgiving.com is easy to use, and many social networking sites such as Facebook are now adding JustGiving as an application, making it very easy to share the fundraising page with all your friends. If you are using hard copies of forms, make sure that you distribute them as widely as possible and make them easy to send back. Don t forget about Gift Aid as you can claim an extra 25p for each pound donated by a tax-payer. 7

Plug into local institutions and organisations. Companies, schools and associations like the Freemasons and the Rotary Club often have charity budgets and communityinvolvement initiatives. Raise awareness. Always couple your fundraising work with efforts to inform and inspire people about the organisation. Represent Girlguiding with pride and make sure that everything you do improves the organisation s image and reputation. Accept that you won t always be successful. Don t be disheartened if you receive a negative response from a donor. Ask for feedback and learn lessons which you can then apply to be successful in the future. Fundraising is nothing if not a process, and, as you know, practice makes perfect! 8